The Things We Fight About While Building Our Dream Life

I was just telling a friend my favorite Fight-With-Mr.-W story last week and I realized I don't think I've ever told it here. It happened sometime last year. I think maybe the weekend that we "moved in" to the house the first time with our temporary furniture. My parents were coming to help us for the weekend and I wanted to get the guest room all set up for them.

Mr. W wanted to treat the floors with a wood conditioner first.

I said no, that it didn't need to be done—we should just put the furniture in and do it later. He insisted it was important. We went back and forth until finally Mr. W spewed an f-bomb and I knew it was time to give in.

It's so rare that Mr. W ever curses like that. And I kind of love that he did it over floor polish.

Much to my dismay, he was totally right, too. The floors looked spectacular when he was done with them.

Another one of our finer moments likely came from the ongoing wear on our nerves from being apart, juggling too much, and probably not being naked in a bed together often enough (thanks to living in separate cities). It involved a trip to Santa Barbara to run errands that I believed should be completed in a particular order.

When Mr. W disagreed, things got heated and spiraled into a silent treatment shopping trip through Trader Joe's. Honestly, I think it was one of our worst fights. And all about whether groceries should be purchased before or after the bachelorette party gift I had to buy...

Our most recent tiff was over the driveway. I hate our driveway. When I go on walks around the neighborhood, I pine for my neighbors' concrete and gravel drives. I think one of the 10 home ownership commandments is, "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's driveway," but I can't help myself. So I sketched out a design of how I would like the front and backyard landscaping, and how I thought we could redo the driveway more affordably.

When I presented my brilliant idea to Mr. W, I expected him to compliment me on my determination and design skills. But instead he told me we couldn't dig up the driveway. I reminded him I hated it and he replied with a couple of expletives and an explanation about how we were already spending a lot of money to renovate the house.

Naturally, when we went to bed that night, I slept waaay over on my side of the mattress to communicate to him that I didn't like his tone.

We don't always follow the "Don't go to bed angry" rule, but we do always make up in the morning. It's hard to stay mad at a cute face (I'm not sure he would stay the same). And I've come to realize I like our fights. Because they're completely silly.

I would much rather be yelling at each other over floor polish than infidelity or addiction or financial irresponsibility.

I will gladly take our tiffs over dumb stuff. Which is good because I'm sure there will be many, many more to come.